On Saturday 8th October 2009 a rally was held in the City Square (Melbourne) to commemorate the Eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, with a call to withdraw Australian troops. Several speakers directed us to the anti war movement in the United States, the mismatch between the original reasons given for invading Afghanistan and the present policies, the cost of the war and the resulting refugees coming to Australia from Afghanistan and the cost of the war, especially for women and children.
I was invited to speak and the text follows below. Some preliminary comments: I was aware that many of those present were socialist or – at least – not church members, but I decided that it was necessary to speak from the heart of the Christian faith. The background to my thinking was informed by a number of responses to the presence of Australian troops (1500) in Afghanistan. Some of these are:
- if we pull out now we will only make it worse;
- it’s a complicated situation and we need to understand the history and the various parties involved;
-we don’t want to express an anti-soldier attitude as happened with the Vietnam protests;
- we are trying to foster democracy and support of women who are oppressed by the Taliban;
- our government is going to pull out the troops at the first opportunity.
SPEECH AT THE AFGHANISTAN RALLY 10th October 2009
Thank you for the invitation to speak at this rally today.
It is a painful task,
because I must speak as a man of God: a Christian minister in a tradition, which stretches back to Abraham. The same tradition shares a history with the Jewish and Muslim communities.
These three great spiritual traditions share one basic thing: the call of God.
This is a painful reminder:
the violence and death we face today is often justified with the name of God, and communities are pitted against each other,.
Today, we weep for all caught up in this net of violence – children, women and men (soldiers and civilians alike).
Let our communities who name God, also cry out in lament with tears, groans too deep for words, at the wounds and deaths.
We must call out for an end to this mayhem – to God!
Yet, the conflict takes place in a far-off place. Only occasionally, as a soldier’s coffin arrives from Afghanistan, do we register the grief and tears. The death is distant.
Here the ancient prophets speak. Those prophets, shared by our three traditions, see a false peace and break it. They uncover their people’s attempt to buy security through military alliances. They see the oppression which crushes the poor and defenceless, and cannot remain silent.
These prophets even uncover the fear deep within – fear of those who are different, who then are treated as a threat!
Today as we gather here we join our voices with the prophets.
But I confess I am getting tired of coming to the city yet again, to yet another public demonstration against yet another war that involves Australian soldiers and reassures us with the false promise that this fight will win us greater security.
Those who remember the rallies of yesteryear, particularly against the war in Vietnam, will recall the great American Baptist Pastor Martin Luther King who reminded us that those who take an eye for an eye’, finally makes everyone blind!
[“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. It seeks to annihilate rather than to convert.” – Wikipedia – as did Mahatma Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”]
Martin Luther King also pointed out that the war in Vietnam was intimately connected to the ongoing effects of the two world wars and their carnage; and also to the nuclear threat.
The Afghanistan war, again to our north, seems at first glance to be more confined, much more local; but in reality we cannot separate the use of military means against tribes and movements from global interests.
And, remembering the decades of violence there, we must say: Afghanistan does not deserve another decade of warfare.
The attempt to solve the wounds of 2001 with military force is failing and will fail.
Can we find a different path to this vicious circle of payback? Can we find ways that recognise injustice done, build confidence between hostile parties, and seek ways to resolve wrongs, ancient and new?
That is our reason for being here today – to join our voices to past protests, for the sake of the world’s future. In that we join the prophets of God.
But we must not speak platitudes.
The roots of the tragedy playing out in Afghanistan are deep. So, as we call for an end to military activity, we must be ready to offer even greater humanitarian means to rebuild the land and its people.
For this we need understanding of the complexities of the situation in Afghanistan.
That is why the peace group Pax Christi is organising a forum on Sunday 18th October [2.00-5.30pm, Centre for Theology and Ministry, Parkville (College Crescent.]
And, even deeper, we need the resources of the great spiritual traditions.
At heart they understand that it is not God who desires and generates violence: the source of violence is the human heart.
That is the reason why, at the centre of the spiritual tradition which I know best, is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – here the God of infinite compassion enters our violence and takes it on, to remove its power over us.
It is not merely that humans suffer; God suffers with the sufferer – in order to generate the hope and possibility of new life.
Here we may discover the God who deals justice with mercy, whose heart breaks for every person wounded; a reconciler who makes peace between enemies, and prompts warring humans to turn swords into ploughshares, instruments of war into the means of growth and health.
Now this leads us to something absurd but necessary; to is prayer. That is, a cry which joins us to God’s own longing for our peace.
• a cry to God asking that hard human hearts so addicted to violence be broken;
• a cry in solidarity with every violated sister and brother, and for nature itself, for the healing of the world;
• a cry for the courage to engage in the costly struggle for an end to all conflict;
• a cry that we may have the imagination to expect a world where justice and peace embrace and kiss each other, where justice rolls down like a never-ending river, and where those who were enemies sit at the same table to share bread, and to seek the best for each others’ children;
• a cry that patience and wisdom will grow in us as we speak to our political leaders, convincing them we want to give up the culture of fear, to live in harmony with our neighbours;
• and a cry that we will have the tenacity, the endurance, the commitment to work for such a world.
May this be our cry today!
(Wes Campbell, 10th October 2009)
A draft resolution for the national Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia
For your interest I post a draft resolution that was put to the Assembly of the Uniting Church in July 2009, then referred (as unfinished business) to the Assembly Standing Committee in August: the text below was the original propsed by Chris Waler and me. The final result expressed support of the Australian Government’s intention to withdraw troops as soon as possible.
My text:
PROPOSAL RE AFGHANISTAN
(submitted to the Assembly in July and referred to the Assembly Standing Committee August 2009)
Recalling that the Assembly has acknowledged that God came in the crucified and risen Christ to make peace; and that same God calls the church, as a peacemaking body, to save life, to heal and to love their neighbours, working for true justice and security by non-violent means (Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57):
We, the members of the Twelfth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, therefore:
a. declare our readiness to seek to respond to the fear and threat of international terrorism in ways consistent with Jesus Christ’s gospel of peace and his call to love enemies (Matthew 5:44);
b. express our deep distress at the human deaths, injury and trauma, and the environmental destruction, resulting from military interventions undertaken in the name of opposition to terror;
c. pray for the building of societies based on a just peace and the end of hostilities, especially in Afghanistan;
d. request the Australian Government to implement urgently such humanitarian and diplomatic means as will assist the people of Afghanistan to build a peaceful and just society and, as a matter of urgency, to withdraw Australian troops from Afghanistan.
PROPOSER: WES CAMPBELL
SECONDER: CHRIS WALKER
RATIONALE
Previous Assemblies have acknowledged Jesus Christ’s call to the church to be a peacemaking body. That call to peace has been reiterated in a variety of contexts, including the nuclear threat and the impending war in Iraq (2003).
(Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57
The present proposal arises after the Australian withdrawal from Iraq but with continued Australian military involvement in Afghanistan. As an Assembly we voice our own distress at the destruction of human life and of the natural environment being experienced as a result of military action in the name of opposition to international terrorism. The proposal asks the Assembly to pray for peace, especially in Afghanistan. The proposal supports positive and non-violent initiatives which will assist to build a just peace in Afghanistan.
As Christian people we draw on the Christian tradition that seeks a peace between enemies, built on a search for mutual trust and just relationships. Although Christian tradition offers the possibility of a ‘justified war’, we know that the conditions for such conflict are extremely rigorous, making any military action an utterly last resort, only when all other means are exhausted. We believe the building of peace is the primary claim on people of faith. Given the complex history of Afghanistan we must assume that this will be a costly and complicated task, at least as costly and complicated as military intervention.
Debate is beginning about the military intervention in Afghanistan. Based upon the long history of Afghanistan resistance to foreign forces, and also supported by the experience of Vietnamese resistance to invading forces, there is a growing opinion that military victory in that country is very unlikely.
Australian military intervention in Afghanistan has been justified as a response to terrorism. The proposal does not support military action as a solution. It expresses the mind of the Assembly gathered in council and requests the Australian Government, as a matter of urgency, to reconsider Australian military involvement and to withdraw from military action in Afghanistan, applying in its place all possible resources to make Australia a force for peace and reconciliation in that region. The proposal makes clear that we want Australian military involvement in Afghanistan to cease.
(Wes Campbell, July 2009)
Afghanistan Proposal ASC August 2009
The ASC passed the following resolution
That the Assembly resolve:
Recalling that the Assembly has acknowledged that God came in the crucified and risen Christ to make peace, and that same God calls the church as a peacemaking body, to save life, to heal and to love their neighbours, working for true justice and security by non-violent means: (Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57):
a) Encourage the Australian Government to increase such humanitarian and dipomatic means as will assist the people of Afghanistan to build a peaceful and just society, and
b) Support the intention of the Australian Government to withdraw Australian troops at the earliest possible opportunity.
Comments:
A letter will go to the Australian Government from the UCA with the above.
Visit: the Assembly website. http://assembly.uca.org.au/
The September edition of Assembly Update mentions the Afghanistan proposal
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